The Thirst Interview

Forget East London and its Hoxton attention whores; time to move south, Brixton-wards, where The Thirst originally formed. So what does it take to create the best band to come out of Brixton since The Clash? A thirteenth birthday present, a spare bedroom, a Cash Converters-cheap drum kit and five GCSEs, not to mention mum and dad’s CDs. Yes, you heard right folks, not that this means you should go pulling out mum’s Best of Cliff Richard collection any time soon. Vocalist Mensah and bassist Kwame were lucky enough to have parents who listened to The Who, Jimmy Hendrix and of course Bob Marley, their father having been a member of reggae band Out of Darkness.

Yet despite the heavy reggae influence brothers Mensah and Kwame chose not to follow in dad’s footsteps. Instead that night at Koko The Thirst play an energetic set of fast, electric “indie, rock, punk, soul, everything, man” tunes, first written and practiced in Mensah and Kwame’s dad’s spare room using a guitar given to Mensah for his birthday (when he actually wanted some trainers) and a drum kit Marcus purchased from a shop down the road. Well, after all the brothers are not straying too far from the influence of their father, explains Mensah “the first record my dad ever bought was The Rolling Stones.”

Little did he know back then that the band his sons were to form would be personally chosen by Ronnie Wood and offered a deal by Wooden Records. Being signed “felt like what we’ve been doing all this time had not gone unnoticed,” says drummer Marcus. “We’d been going about two and a half years, just, like, gigging gigging gigging non-stop. Brixton, Camden, anywhere” adds Mensah. So much gigging in fact, that it was probably due to tonight’s scheduled gig that The Thirst were missing Ronnie Wood’s 60th birthday party.

However, constant live shows and time in recording studios have not come at great social cost to the assured and unruffled members of The Thirst. The band, first brought together at school, from which they emerged with only five GCSEs but a whole load of friends, vouch that their garage-listening posse have all been very supportive “once they’d come down to a show and seen what we’re actually about, that there’s a heavy drum’n’bass influence in there, garage and all that” despite the fact that originally “a lot of them were like ‘you lot are nuts, man’” laughs Mensah. For now the band are happy to go with the flow “keep[ing] out of every box” and exploring different genres.

Though their friends might not be so keen on indie, the band maintain that there’s a lot of good to be gained from the bands they’ve recorded alongside of at Olympic Studios: “The Natives-a good band. Libertines, obviously. Heavily influenced by the whole Libertines movement and, like, so yeah man, its just an honour. Pete Doherty- good songwriter, Carl Barat-good song-writer.” Coincidentally, later that evening, a bare-chested Marcus shows he has every bit the rhythm and style of Libertines drummer Gary Powell.

So apart from fellow musicians like The Libertines or Talk Taxis, friends of The Thirst, what else inspires a great Brixton band like The Thirst? “ Tell Lie Vision on the EP,” answers Mensah “is just inspired by where we’re from, what goes on…we just sing about everything we see, going out raving, going down the pub, having a drink with friends. Sing about stuff we see- we don’t sing about the clouds!”

Having already toured with the Rolling Stones and with a single (‘Ready to Move’) out on 29th October, no doubt that in the days to come The Thirst will be seeing a lot more of the world. “It’s gonna be amazing” says Mensah, smiling a little, eyes twinkling, guitarist Mark nodding: “ Its good to see other countries.” “Its all good man,” concludes Mensah, “We enjoy it. We enjoy it all man. Just like, man we’re happy. Happy to be with people, going to different cities.”

And despite the lyrics of ‘All These Places’ ( all these places look the same to me/but I’ve changed), the band say they’ll never change. Later that night, the band has to stop briefly and Mensah cheekily informs the audience that Marcus is fixing his drums…you’d think they’d at least have changed the Cash Converters kit by now.

MK